While the teachings of the present invention may be applicable to the magazine of many types of home and industrial fastener driving tools, for purposes of an exemplary illustration, the invention will be described in its application to an industrial staple driving tool.
Prior art workers have devised numerous staple driving tools and magazines therefor. In many types of jobs, it is imperative that the staple driving tool operator be able to reload staples into the tool magazine easily, quickly and efficiently. This is so that there will be little or no time lost in a piecework operation, or that staple drivings will not be missed in an assembly line operation.
There are many types of staple driving tool magazines requiring different loading procedures and manipulations. Top loading magazines, bottom loading magazines and end loading magazines are all well known in the art. In general, these three types of magazines can be loaded by left-handed and right-handed operators with equal facility.
The so-called top-side loading magazine, on the other hand, is generally designed or set-up for right-handed loading and is difficult and awkward for a left-handed operator to load. The top-side loading magazine generally comprises an elongated rail straddled by a row or stick of staples and a feeder shoe located behind the staples. A resilient member is provided to constantly urge the feeder shoe, and thus the row of staples, forwardly so that the forwardmost staple of the row is located in the drive track of the tool guide body, ready to be driven. An elongated door is provided, which is swingable between an open position and a closed position wherein the door at least partially overlies the top surface of the rail, assuring that the row of staples mounted thereon cannot fall off of or become dislodged from the rail when the tool is used other than in a substantially upright position. To reload this sort of magazine, it is necessary to pull the feeder shoe to its rearwardmost position, open the door and insert the staples inwardly and downwardly over the rail from one side of the tool. When a magazine of this sort is designed for a right-handed person and is manipulated by a right-handed person, it can be quickly and easily refilled with staples. However, this same magazine would be difficult and awkward to load by a left-handed operator. The only alternative would be to provided the magazine in both left-handed and right-handed models.
The present invention is based upon the discovery that if a top-side loading magazine is provided with a reversible door and a reversible shoe, the staple driving tool can be quickly and easily set-up for use by a left-handed or right-handed operator, utilizing a minimum of parts and without the necessity of having left-handed and right-handed models or specific left-handed and right-handed parts.